Working with a Translation Agency: A Guide for New Translators in Canada

1. How a Specialized Agency Is Organized

Most translation agencies offer forty or sixty languages and assign French projects according to translator availability. Frenchside has followed a more specialized model since 2014. We work with a single language pair, English and French, and English-to-French translation is at the heart of our practice. Our clients are located throughout Canada and the United States. Most are organizations based outside Quebec, including head offices in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa and the US, that need French versions of legal, financial, HR, technical, medical, packaging or marketing content. In many cases, these translations are required under Quebec's Charter of the French Language and Bill 96.

Each project involves three main roles. The project manager receives and analyzes the client's files, prepares the glossary and instructions, and assigns the work. The translator, usually a freelancer working remotely, produces the French version. A reviser, who is always a second linguist, then compares the French with the English before delivery. Every document is revised, including short and urgent assignments. This workflow follows the process set out in ISO 17100, described on our methodology and quality page, and helps ensure that the client receives a document ready for publication.

Nearly all our translators are independent contractors. They choose which assignments to accept, invoice us by project and remain free to work with other clients. Some have worked with Frenchside since 2014. This arrangement is common in the Canadian translation industry and makes agency work a valuable first step for new translators. It provides access to a regular flow of real documents, terminology resources and feedback from revisers, while the agency handles client acquisition.

2. What We Look For in a New Translator (and What We Do Not Require)

We add a small number of new translators to our team each year. The qualities we look for tend to remain the same.

• French as a native or dominant language, with the ability to write it to a professional standard. Most assignments are in Canadian French or Quebec French, although we also produce European French for clients operating in France. We ask applicants to be clear about the variety or varieties they genuinely master.
• A translation degree or comparable training. A BA or MA from a Canadian program, such as those offered in Ottawa, Glendon, Concordia, McGill, Montréal, Laval or Moncton, shows that you have been trained to work closely from a source text rather than simply paraphrase it.
• A specialization, or a genuine interest in developing one. Our main fields include legal, financial, HR, technical, medical and marketing translation. Our recruitment is focused on specialists, whose work also tends to command better rates. Your first specialization may come from previous employment, another degree or a year of focused agency experience.
• Reliability when it comes to deadlines and instructions. We would rather a translator tell us immediately that a Thursday deadline is not possible than accept it and deliver on Friday.
• An interest in regulatory matters. Clients rely on us for language and compliance. Their questions may concern the content of a Quebec contract of adhesion, the presentation of French on a label or the documents reviewed during an OQLF inspection. Translators who consult our guides and ask relevant questions about these issues tend to progress quickly.

3. The Translation Test, Step by Step

Every new translator completes a short, unpaid test, including those who are already certified. It is not intended to trip anyone up or provide us with free work: we use a fictional or public-domain passage with no commercial value. Every candidate receives annotated feedback, regardless of the outcome.

1. You submit your application as described in section 10. If your profile meets our current needs, we send you the test within a week, together with brief instructions, a glossary and the required variety of French.
2. The test contains 350 to 500 words from one of our main fields. It may be a contract clause, an excerpt from an HR policy, a technical paragraph or a marketing text. You select the field closest to your specialization and have seven days to return the completed test, with no fixed time limit on the day you work on it.
3. A senior reviser assesses the translation using four criteria: accuracy in relation to the English source, including any additions or omissions; the quality of the French, including grammar, typography and Canadian conventions; appropriate terminology and compliance with the glossary; and overall readability for a Quebec audience.
4. You receive the annotated translation and a brief written assessment within two weeks. Successful candidates begin with smaller assignments, which receive particularly careful revision. We explain the changes made and the reasons behind them.

Tests most often fall short because the candidate has overlooked an instruction, replaced an approved glossary term with a synonym or followed the English sentence structure too closely. Occasionally, a strong test does not result in immediate assignments because we have no current demand in that specialization. When this happens, we explain the situation and keep the application on file.

4. Rates, Invoicing and Payment

Translators are paid per source word. A minimum fee applies to very short assignments, while revision, post-editing and formatting are paid by the hour. We provide our rate grid when we send the test, before you spend time completing it, so the terms are clear from the outset.

As a general indication, freelance rates for English to French translation in Canada currently range from approximately $0.08 to $0.16 CAD per source word. The rate depends on the field, certification requirements and turnaround time. Legal, financial and medical translations are usually at the higher end of the range, while certified documents are often priced per page. New translators without an established specialization generally begin at the lower end and move up as the amount of revision their work requires decreases. Translators whose work consistently needs little correction are paid accordingly. Rush assignments and weekend work carry an additional fee.

Invoices are submitted monthly for completed projects and paid by direct deposit within 30 days. Each translator is responsible for their own taxes and, once the federal threshold is reached, GST/HST or GST/QST registration. We supply the purchase order numbers and an annual summary for your bookkeeping.

5. Tools, Translation Memories and Machine Translation

We manage all assignments in a CAT tool, primarily Trados Studio, and provide a project licence whenever a specific tool is required. Experience with a student licence is sufficient for a new translator; most people become comfortable with the interface within a week. Each project includes the relevant translation memory and client glossary. These resources belong to the client and must not be reused for other work.

Before receiving a first assignment, every translator signs a confidentiality agreement. Files are transferred through a secure portal rather than as email attachments and are deleted whenever the client requests it.

6. Specializations in Demand Right Now

Demand for English-to-French translation is influenced by both trade and regulation. New translators who develop expertise in one of the following areas are generally more likely to receive regular work.

• Quebec compliance documents: contracts of adhesion, employment contracts, HR policies, product labels and customer-facing websites. Companies based outside Quebec must now provide many of these materials in French under Bill 96, and the volume of this work has increased every year since 2022.
• Legal and financial translation: commercial agreements, corporate filings, investor communications and fund documents for head offices in cities such as Toronto and Calgary. This precise, well-paid work also provides a natural route towards certification.
• Federal official languages work: reports, training materials, accessibility plans under the Accessible Canada Act and bids for federal contracts. Many translators working in this market live in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Our Ottawa page gives an overview of the types of clients involved.
• Technical and safety documentation: user manuals, safety data sheets and specifications for manufacturers selling or shipping products in Quebec.
• Marketing adaptation: campaigns, taglines and brand content written to resonate with a Quebec French audience. In this field, strong writing skills are just as important as translation skills.

Two abilities are useful across all these specializations. The first is understanding the differences between Quebec French, Canadian French and European French and being able to produce the requested variety. The second is knowing the regulatory framework well enough to notice a potential issue in the source and bring it to the project manager's attention.

7. Agency Work and the Path to ATIO or OTTIAQ Certification

You do not need to be certified to work with Frenchside, although we encourage translators to pursue certification. Regular agency assignments can provide useful experience and documentation throughout that process.

In Ontario, translators obtain certification through ATIO, the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario. They may take the CTTIC certification exam or apply for certification on dossier, which requires several years of documented professional experience and supporting references. In Quebec, OTTIAQ accepts candidates through a mentorship program, during which a certified member supervises their work for several months, or through recognition of experience. Both organizations require evidence of professional practice and translation volume. Some pathways also require attestations from employers or clients. Our province-by-province guide to certified translation summarizes who can certify a translation in each part of Canada.

Working with a specialized agency can help you build this record. Regular assignments provide the documented volume requested by professional associations, while comments from a senior reviser offer a form of guided practice outside a formal mentorship. We also issue attestations of work for translators applying on dossier. Several members of our current team obtained certification while working with us. Translators who become certified may then be assigned the certified and official documents that account for a growing share of our work. Our certified translation page explains what these assignments involve.

Certification allows a translator to sign certain documents, but does not in itself determine the rate paid. Progression on our rate grid is based primarily on the quality and consistency of the work and the amount of revision it requires.

8. Your First Year With Us

The following timeline gives a realistic idea of the first year for a translator who passes the test and has a specialization that matches our needs.

• Months 1 to 3: small assignments of 500 to 3,000 words, limited to one or two fields and fully revised with comments. Corrections are a normal part of this stage and should gradually become less frequent.
• Months 4 to 8: regular projects in your field, longer documents and direct discussions with the project manager about terminology. For translators pursuing certification, the experience accumulated during this period can begin to support a future attestation.
• Months 9 to 12: a regular place on the roster for a particular client or account, priority for that client's projects and a rate review based on revision history. Some translators may also begin revising colleagues' work at this stage. Revision is treated as a separate service and paid at a separate rate.

Assignment volumes depend on market demand and your availability, so we cannot guarantee a minimum. We ask each translator to share their capacity every month and allocate work accordingly.

9. Co-op Placements and Internships

We accept co-op students and interns from Canadian translation programs, including the University of Ottawa's co-op program, for one-term placements. Placements at Frenchside are remote and supervised by a senior reviser. Students work on real client projects in a specific field and receive the same revision and feedback as other translators. At the end of the placement, students are invited to complete our standard translation test. If you would like to discuss a placement, write to the address in section 10 and include your program and preferred term. We will then send you a written placement description.

10. How to Apply

Apply through our careers form or send an email in French or English to [email protected], including:

• your CV, with details of your degree, language variety (Quebec, Canadian or European French) and CAT tool experience;
• the one or two fields in which you specialize, or the specialization you would like to develop;
• your current certification status, if applicable (ATIO, OTTIAQ, another provincial organization, or candidate status);
• your approximate monthly capacity in words.

We respond to every complete application within ten working days, including those we are unable to pursue. There is no need to send translation samples, as the test is used to assess each applicant's work.